As the political season continues, I wonder what will decide the Presidential election?
Not the identity of the Democratic candidate. That's not crucial.
Events, I think, will prevail. Or their absence.
If the US gets Osama bin Laden, President Bush will be reelected.
If the electorate gets shocking facts on what preceded 9/11 - I suspect we ain't heard nothin' yet - or harder evidence that the White House lied to get the country into Iraq, he might well lose.
There's a story in the New York Times this morning that ties into this thesis. Douglas Jehl writes that the Senate Intelligence Committee voted in closed session to "move toward a possible subpoena" for certain documents related to "prewar intelligence on Iraq."
Though his name appears only incidentally in the story, I read this report as a smoke signal from Sen. Pat Roberts, the Midwestern Republican who heads the committee, to his friends in the White House. Something like, "Help!"
(Politicians regularly use the press to send special messages.)
The 9/11 panel headed by Republican Thomas Kean also is having a hard time getting answers from the White House. I remember Kean as a straight-shooter when he was Governor of New Jersey.
Loud reports from either group could determine the election.
So could a major act of terrorism on US soil, which would probably help Bush. His campaign will stress fear, of course, portraying him as "strong."
The economy will be important, but no economic event, unless very big, will determine what happens. Sure, a stock market collapse would, but that is unlikely. Nor will small gains or losses on the job front qualify.
Oh, in the long run, the Bush approach to the economy risks pushing us into a Depression. But the election is in the short run. And, as we all know, in the long run we shall all be dead.
I have been neglecting my duty to amuse. By way of atonement, here is the first installment in what should be a frequent, fun-filled feature intended to provoke smiles, if not guffaws.
1. Testifying at a House subcommittee on broadcast "indecency," Gail Berman, president of entertainment for the Fox network, said:
"We sincerely regret that a few incidents of inappropriate programming have overshadowed the good shows we proudly air on Fox each week."
(Good one, eh?)
2. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia doesn’t hunt only with VP Chaney. He pursued pheasants on a trip arranged by the dean of the University of Kansas School of Law weeks before hearing two cases in which the dean was a lead attorney. Here is Scalia’s defense:
"I do not think that spending time at a law school in which the counsel in pending cases was the dean could reasonably cause my impartiality to be questioned."
(Not bad.)
Here is a third statement I find unfunny but worthy of note.
In Kabul, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said, "I’ve not seen any indication that the Taliban pose any military threat to the security of Afghanistan."
On the outskirts of Kabul, meanwhile, five aid workers were killed in an attack "that resembled previous attacks attributed to the Taliban," said the Chicago Tribune.
Seven paragraphs further down, the reporter noted: "More than 500 people have been killed in a resurgence of violence linked to the Taliban movement since last summer."
(No comment.)
In the previous item about Clear Channel, the radio giant, I said the company suspended Howard Stern.
To be exact, the six Clear Channel stations that carried Stern's program have dropped it now, at least temporarily. The show is owned by Viacom.
o Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made it perfectly clear – he thinks the Bush tax cuts – heavily weighted toward the wealthy and corporate America – should be made permanent. He also called for reducing Social Security benefits "as soon as possible."
On the Social Security issue, this put President Bush to Greenspan’s left!
Greenspan and Clinton, you remember, reached a deal. Greenspan would beam on Clinton's leadership and help him cut the deficit so long as Clinton gave up initiating any significant spending program.
Question – should a Democrat win in November, will he have the guts to fire Greenspan?
o Neo-conservative Richard Perle has resigned from the Defense Policy Board, where he was a prime advocate of the invasion of Iraq. Earlier, Perle quit as head of DPB after it was revealed he had lucrative contracts with defense industries.
Just the other day, we noted he is co-author of a new book, "An End to Evil," that calls for, according to reviewer Pat Buchanan, "permanent war for their [the neocons] permanent empowerment."
• President Bush decided to get to the bottom of this issue regarding the safety of prescription drugs re-imported from Canada. His chief investigator? Dr. Mark McClellan, head of the FDA and a passionate opponent of letting those drugs cross the border.
There is no truth to the rumor - I've checked it out - that Bush will next pick
Attorney General John Ashcroft to probe charges that the Patriot Act violates the Constitution.
o Clear Channel, the nation’s biggest radio conglomerate (about 1200 stations nationwide, 19 in New Mexico), suspended the Howard Stern Show for "indecent content."
Earlier, it fired a Florida DJ whose sexual "antics" prompted the FCC to threaten a fine.
Clear Channel did not say it was "shocked, shocked" to discover the objectionable content, but I hear that its top executives recently screened "Casablanca".
I have a solution to the argument about gay marriage.
If marriage is a sacrament or otherwise holy, it is the business of churches, not the state.
States should not marry gays, but only approve civil unions.
Where does this leave gays and lesbians? Getting the practical advantages of civil unions from the state.
If they want to be married in church, they ought to find or create one that will marry them.
I see by the papers that a couple of Senate Democrats may hold up confirmation of Dr. McClellan, boss at the Food & Drug Administration, as the new head of Medicare. They're bothered by the FDA's strong stand against importing prescription drugs from Canada.
This points to a journalistic scandal of huge proportions.
Where are the stories of all those Canadians getting sick and dying from taking bad drugs? Surely, the number of dead Canadians must be in the thousands now. Why the censorship?
I have no doubt that there's a conspiracy here. If Canadians are not suffering from these pills and potions, why else would the FDA oppose re-importing them? Why would the FDA say, as it has, that it cannot guarantee the safety of those products?
You cannot answer those questions, can you? You cannot provide any other explanation. Aha!
Alan Greenspan is a wonder. The Establishment still worships him and well it should – he’s never wavered from his allegiance to the richest among us. But ordinary Americans credit him, too, for financial wisdom, which is bewildering.
True, the Federal Reserve Chairman has been deft in fighting inflation and helping the markets recover from their own excesses. But while collaborating with President Clinton on reducing deficits – which meant Clinton had no money for traditional Democratic programs – Greenspan never saw fit to rein in the Wall Street gamblers. He let them borrow and buy on margin, so when the Internet bubble burst, the losses – some our losses - were terrible. He also found time to bail out the hedge fund gamblers who, falling, threatened to topple the whole Wall Street temple.
Greenspan’s record with George W. Bush is even worse. He lent his prestige to the Bush tax cuts; no matter that they wiped out Clinton’s surpluses and moved us back into big deficits for now and the foreseeable future.
No matter, either, that they now threaten our economy and the world’s, according to Robert Rubin and others.
A week ago, Greenspan, uncharacteristically, spoke plain English. Admitting some concern about the deficit, he said he’d prefer to reduce them by cutting spending. In other words, don’t touch those huge tax cuts for millionaires and major corporations. Save it on the boomers’ Social Security and Medicare.
Greenspan’s eyesight continues to be selective. He told a credit union conference yesterday that Americans’ household finances are generally in good shape. The reassurance comes despite Fed reports showing consumers are deeper in debt than ever before - $2 trillion in December – and bankruptcies were way up in 2003.
You can believe him if you wish. Me, I remember that the Great Depression was brought on by business and Establishment economists who rationalized their behavior.
PS While Greenspan abets the gamblers and helps Bush cut taxes for the wealthiest, he's silent on the minimum wage. It's been $5.15 an hour since 1997. Guess it's their own fault, those minimum wage workers. Why don't they rise up and conquer the world, the way Ayn Rand's heroes did?
You do know that Greenspan was part of Ayn Rand's circle years ago, don't you?
We all play the blame game. It's easy to be disgusted with the Bush Administration and easy to blame Ralph Nader for costing Gore the last presidential election.
But he didn't.
In the first instance, the voters who chose Nader are more responsible than Nader himself.
Secondly, if reports that they manipulated voting are correct, some Florida Republicans are responsible.
Thirdly, all the fine folks who counseled over the years that the Electoral College system isn't so terrible are responsible.
Finally, a majority of the Supreme Court of the United States is responsible.
How quickly they forgot that they favor states' rights!
Nader was responsible only for his own vote.
Now he's back and replying to the cries of anguish that the situation hasn't changed - both parties are corporate tools.
He's correct, of course, though we can argue with him about the extent.
As I see it, corporate interests had way too much influence in the Clinton Administration, while they are the Bush Administration.
This is not to say that Nader should get any votes. The job is to get back to where we were and the most effective way to do that, to reduce corporate domination, is to elect the 2004 Democratic candidate.
That is also the shortest distance toward ending the radical, unilateral, murderous, paranoid, imperialistic foreign policy of the Bush White House.
First, elect a Democrat. Later, maybe, we can establish (re-establish?) American democracy.
Who wrote, in a review of the Richard Perle-David Frum book, "An End to Evil," the following:
o In the war we are in, our enemies are weak. That is why they resort to
the weapon of the weak‹terror. And, as in the Cold War, time is on
America1s side. Perseverance and patience are called for, not this
panic.
o The more I saw, the more I thought that this [war] was the product of
the neocons who didn1t understand the region and were going to create
havoc there. These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who
never had had an idea that worked on the ground .... Somehow, the neocons captured the president. They captured the vice president. [Quote from Gen Anthony Zinni]
o Fear is what Perle and his co-author David Frum are peddling to
stampede America into serial wars. Just such fear-mongering got us into
Iraq, though, we have since discovered, Iraq had no hand in 9/11, no
ties to al-Qaeda, no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear program,
and no plans to attack us. Iraq was never "the clear and present
danger" the authors insist she was.
o …they declaim:
For us, terrorism remains the great evil of our time, and the war
against this evil, our generation1s great cause….We believe [Americans] are fighting to win‹to end this evil before it kills again and on a genocidal scale. …
But no nation can "end evil." Evil has existed since Cain rose up
against his brother Abel and slew him. A propensity to evil can be
found in every human heart. And if God accepts the existence of evil,
how do Frum and Perle propose to "end it? Nor can any nation "win the
war on terror." Terrorism is simply a term for the murder of
non-combatants for political ends.
o … An End to Evil is a brief in defense of neoconservatives against their impending indictment on charges they lied us into a war that may prove our
greatest disaster since Vietnam. And the charge of deliberate deceit is
not without merit.
o Let it be said: it is vital to victory over al-Qaeda, to the security
of our country, the safety of our people, and our broader interests in
an Arab and Islamic world of 57 nations that stretches from Morocco to
Malaysia that we not let the neocons conflate our war on terror with
their war for hegemony.
Now, for $10 million - just kidding - what dangerous left-winger wrote all of the above?
Patrick Buchanan, in The American Conservative (March 1, 2004).
He summarizes by accusing the neoconservatives of a hidden agenda: "permanent war for their permanent empowerment."
You may want to read the entire article. It’s marred, I think, by Buchanan’s own hidden agenda: anti-Semitism couched as anti-Zionism. But nobody ever accused him of stupidity or poor writing.
Now sit back and consider. How crazy is a world where the fascist wannabe, Patrick Buchanan, attacks the White House from its left? And makes a lot of sense?
The Albuquerque Journal’s Washington reporter, Michael Coleman, opens today's piece this way:
"Rep. Heather Wilson got plenty of media mileage form her near-nuclear assault on television executives who came to Capital Hill earlier this month to discuss Janet Jackson’s breast-baring episode during the Super Bowl halftime show."
At that point, I was ready for some analysis. Silly me.
The column went on to detail where Wilson got her "mileage," including PBS and Howard Stern and HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher." OK, I’m happy to know that, but the analysis?
Coleman tells us where he stands – "CBS, MTV and Viacom have denied any knowledge of the incident prior to it happening. But Janet Jackson wasn’t making many apologies." Then he points out that she was pushing her new CD.
So we know he forgives the institutions, but not the entertainer, No matter that she, unlike the corporations, took responsibility for the stunt.
Interesting, but what about Wilson?
Returning to her, Coleman quotes her comments on HBO and goes back to the clips to find other instances in which she spoke up for decency.
Too bad he didn’t do more research. I would have appreciated knowing the context for Wilson’s stand. What does she think is decent? How did she vote on reform of election financing? Has she ever pushed TV to contribute free time to candidates? Ever voted against Big Media on any issue?
Hey, I am easily pleased. Wilson's definition of decency woul have satisfied me. Unfortunately, Coleman didn't do that. Nor did he make any connections.
Journalism in the first degree is telling us about events – who, what, where, when, why they happened. When they have time, as in Sunday columns, news folk are supposed to help us think. That demands context, connections, sometimes contradictions.
Instead, Colmean just told us Wilson got a lot of ink, thereby giving her still more, before walking away from his computer.
Pointless journalism.
As the story goes, advertising writers in Florida hoped to use the Johnny Cash classic, "Ring of Fire", for a TV spot selling a hemorrhoid-relief product.
But the family said "No."
"We would never allow the song to be demeaned like that," daughter Roseanne Cash, herself a singer, told the Nashville Tennessean.
She must be a Commie-Pinko, right? Turning down money for what - some vague idea of art or integrity? Demeaned? They were going to pay for it, weren't they?
Surely everybody agrees that money is the highest value.
Except the Cash family, I guess. And their name is Cash.
I write a column under the rubric "New Wrinkles in Aging" for the Albuquerque Tribune, which publishes it the third Thursday. Here is today's:
(Headline: ll this modern technology, and all we get is junk?)
by Arthur Alpert
Every time I succumb to nostalgia, I slap myself. (Thanks, I needed
that.)
Nostalgia is a lie we tell ourselves, Memory’s centerfold, a picture of the past with flaws airbrushed out.
If I were dependent on the medical arts of the good ol’ days, for example,
I’d be dead now. You, too? The past was not idyllic.
Yet we mid-20th Century folk weren’t immersed in crudity.
Let us speak of Janet Jackson’s breast, of outrage and of speed - the alacrity with which CBS, the NFL, Federal Communications Commission and sundry politicians expressed sincere horror.
Morality is supposed to make us behave well, isn’t it? We use it instead to turn eyes away from our own behavior.
CBS would prefer we not notice its passionate pursuit of maximum bucks, its degrading "reality" programming, its processed "news product." (That metallic groan is Edward R. Murrow twisting in his grave.)
The NFL - a theological institute, who knew? - teased out a moral distinction to perplex a Talmudic scholar. The line, that is, between cheerleader cleavage (good) and one breast, tasseled (shameful).
The FCC just noticed that the Super Bowl prays to beer, bosoms, bombast and flybys. Guess the commissioners were busy. (OK, guys, GE, Viacom, Murdoch and Disney aren’t mammoth enough. Let’s supersize them. Who’s calling? Comcast?)
Politicians are scolding the broadcasters loudly. (They will vote for their TV corporate benefactors on tippy-toes.)
Hypocrisy aside, though, the Super Bowl was a sad spectacle. But so is everyday TV.
While we were distracted, you see, its economics and technology changed. Even as Libertarian hordes trashed government regulation.
Result? The TV biz today (over-the-air, cable and satellite) is a highly disciplined search for maximum profit every hour, every day.
That’s why broadcasters who once donated Sunday morning to public affairs and culture, now sell it to preachers promoting happiness by way of the Gospel or kitchen gadgets.
It’s why documentaries moved to cable where they’re safe, thin and celebrity-driven.
It’s why variety vanished. Ed Sullivan put acrobats, opera stars, jocks, headliners like the Beatles, comedians - where’s Señor Wences when we need him? - pop singers, on the same stage every Sunday. Mixing demographics, however, no longer produces big bucks.
Civilized discourse? As the obituaries reminded us, Jack Paar talked to witty "characters" like Oscar Levant, storytellers like Alexander King, even folks with ideas. His successors mine the wit and wisdom of Paris Hilton.
And the attitudes! No more how artfully you wield the remote you cannot escape the negative, inane, tawdry. I play a minor role in the current MTS revival of "South Pacific" and nightly I think, "How naive!" Rodgers and Hammerstein thought romance, decency and kindness exist. Fools!
Nostalgia is a crock, but I remember when TV was broad-casting, not narrow. It was a diversion, a stream in which to dip our toes. Today we flounder in a media ocean, breasting waves of fast-cuts and data bits, color and sensation, sound and fury signifying what? Triviality. At best.
Understanding this, Janet Jackson was able to cut through the clutter.
So here we are - crudity, all day, all the time. Replays at 10. Whose fault is it? Well, broadcasters make good scapegoats, but TV is a mirror. I can see our reflection clearly. Yes, we’re talking morality and loving the maximum buck.
Confession? I am nostalgic. For other values.
You can reach Alpert at www.alpertstruth.com.
"This is entirely a schedule dictated by Karl Rove."
That's from an unnamed Arab diplomat who continued, "Anyone who thnks otherwise is naive."
The reference, of course, is to the Administration's determination to turn control of Iraq to an Iraqi authority no later than June 30.
This from a Steven Weisman story in today's New York Times.
Weisman quotes unnamed Administration officials, too, saying that June 30 is dictated by the politics of reelection.
It is impossible to overestimate this Administration's duplicity.
Manipulating 9/11, they broadened a proper response to alQaeda (and Afghanistan's Taliban government) into a "war on terrorism," then used that "Crusade" to implement a pre-existing geo-political scheme that called for war on Iraq.
Afraid to talk about that grand strategy, the Administration used and misused intelligence to set up the WMD rationale. They told us the war would be cheap, the Iraqis would cheer and pay for their own liberation with their oil.
So here we are. Having spent the lives of some 550 young soldiers so far, we still have not ended the Iraqi resistance, the risk of civil war grows and we are faced with years of supporting Iraq financially.
The war was a terrible error. In perpetrating it, we made ourselves responsible for that country. That means we need more US troops to protect those already in the field and those Iraqis dependent on us - Rumsfeld's denial notwithstanding.
Further, we will need to stay years to rebuild that nation and keep it from falling into anarchy or dictatorship. (Democracy? It's not in the cards.)
By bugging out early, Bush compounds his first mistake. Fact is, he assumed new responsibilities for the nation in order to become a "war president."
But responsibility is not what motives this Administration. Political calculations rule. Calculations dictated by Karl Rove.
Recently I described our economic system as free enterprise for small business, government welfare for big.
According to Rep. Tom Udall, the Bush budget would give the Small Business Administration $119 million, or 15% less than it got last year. Also, it abolishes loans for the smallest entrepreneurs.
Why am I not surprised? Because I remember the Reagan Administration, of sainted memory, tried to do away with the SBA in its entirety.
As I was saying, free enterprise for small business....
I recently gave up Harper’s after years of subscribing. Their copyrighted Index was still fun, but the magazine’s politics – mine, basically - had become predictable and the tone was too snide.
I am reading the Atlantic Monthly these days. It is not always liberal. In fact, it keeps printing articles on political problems that combine lots of information and complex analysis, with no ideology at all. In other words, the Atlantic pretends to objectivity, which is silly.
The tone, however, is refreshingly non-shrill. Take, for example, a short piece in the March issue,"The Unfree World", in which authors Jen Joynt and Marshall Poe trace the growth of liberal democracy in the former Soviet Union (negative) and around the world (mixed), concluding:
"All this suggests a major obstacle in the quest for global freedom: most of the world has no tradition - ancient or modern – of liberal democracy. This rare form of governance was mainly the product of a very specific time (the 19th century) and place (a small number of North Atlantic nations, including England, France and the United States). …
"The Bush Administration has wagered that the US, by force of arms and aid, can transform Iraq into a liberal-democratic regime and thereby set an example for other countries in the region. The history of such efforts is not encouraging…."
And so on.
You get the idea. The Atlantic makes me think of what my mother tried to teach me as a child. "Don’t yell. Don’t point. Don’t use your hands."
Yes, this is the WASP Establishment, which simply doesn’t raise its voice, is polite and seemingly uninvolved in its conclusions. Not lots of fun to read, the Atlantic, but perhaps, therefore more persuasive.
PS Now if we could get the Atlantic's editors to use a little body English once in a while...
As I read it, "Newsweek," in its cover story on Mel Gibson’s "The Passion", says Gibson misconstrues the evidence on who killed Jesus.
I am midway through "Desire of the Everlasting Hills," Thomas Cahill’s fascinating book on the world "before and after Jesus." Cahill takes great pains to point out that Jesus’ preachments were fundamentally Jewish; specifically, his emphasis on helping the weak, on equality and on justice. (Of course, his advice to love the oppressor was revolutionary; I suspect nobody, Jewish or gentile, liked it one bit.)
While I cannot wait to see the movie, I don’t care who killed Jesus. After all, if they had treated him well, there would be no Resurrection and, I guess, no Christianity.
I am fascinated by Cahill’s picture of Jesus as an advocate for the powerless.
If he was, most Christian churches have neglected that part of his teaching, emphasizing hierarchy, obedience and moral behavior instead.
That is why I am not surprised that conservatives and right-wingers march under church banners. However, I cannot, for the life of me, see how they can pretend to be following Jesus.
The young Rabbi who threw the money-changers out of the Temple, a Republican? The preacher who said, "You who are without sin throw the first stone" and "Judge not, lest you be judged" a law-and-order type?
Not being Christian, I may be wrong here. So please correct and guide me. And while you are at it, help me understand the connection between Paul, who said, "….and the greatest of these is love," and Bush, Chaney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft
If that’s what those guys are exuding, I am failing to pick up the vibes.
It looks as if John Kerry will be the candidate. Most Democrats clearly think he is "electable."
I hope the majority is correct.
Kerry is admirable, no doubt. But we have no emotional connection.
Let's hope that's my failing.
We have finished the first weekend of "South Pacific" at MTS's Highland Theater.
My sense is that we players did well opening night, lacked energy Saturday and killed (as they say) at the Sunday matinee.
But theater is a two-way medium. Audiences send vibrations back to the players, changing what we do.
For example, supportive friends and family filled the theater Friday, urging us on. No surprise that we complied.
The next night the audience was lethargic. Perhaps they'd dined out first. Maybe enjoyed a drink, too. Whatever the reason, cast and audience were listless.
Yesterday's matinee audience included so many older folks that I felt downright adolescent by comparison. And boy, were they giving!
In one of my scenes, they laughed before I launched into a funny tirade. Somehow they knew - or felt - what was coming.
"South Pacific" is, of course, all about World War II, the era that shaped them and left residue in their bones.
I'm not sure about size, but yesterday's audience reminded me - age matters.
Last Thursday, I followed routine, emailing my monthly column to the Albuquerque Tribune, one week ahead of its scheduled publication on the third of the month.
Meanwhile, Frank Rich stole some of my thunder in the Sunday New York Times. And William Safire stole more of it this morning.
By the time you read my piece - in case you don't get the Tribune, I will post it here Thursday - it will make darn little noise.
"So who cares," I hear you saying.
I do. Not that I delude myself into thinking I am in the same league as Rich and Safire. But...well...it's fun to be first with an idea. Or, at least, to finish in the running.
Oh, well. There's consolation in the theory that "great minds think alike." Isn't there?
PS Perhaps you should think about subscribing to the Tribune, whose readership keeps sinking; these days we get news in the PM from TV, radio and the Net. It's got a lot of good reading, including Molly Ivins.
CBS has been passing the buck and/or apologizing for its Super Bowl half-time show and several less-than-tasteful commercials.
So much attention has been paid to the crotch-grabbing and wardrobe malfunction (revealing one full breast, tasseled) that I almost forgot what CBS rejected.
Bono wanted to use music to heighten awareness of AIDS.
And moveon.org was willing to pay for a commercial opposing President Bush's budget strategy -"we spend now, the grandkids pay later."
CBS was less than enthusiastic about both and I can see why. They were up against not just the aforementioned crotch and breast, but also erectile dysfunction and equine flatulence.
Tough competition.
The League of Women Voters was born February 14, 1920, so it is 84 today.
As a member, I get lots of information from the League. And I admire it greatly. But I am beginning to doubt its wisdom on the subject of voting. Specifically, the LWV has promoted various schemes to make voting easier, including early voting.
I don’t favor allowing people to cast a ballot weeks or a month before Election Day because they may miss crucial, late-breaking news. (What did President Bush know about 9/11 before it happened and when did he know it?)
Besides, the reason many Americans don't vote isn’t inconvenience. It’s because they figure it doesn’t matter. Sometimes, they figure correctly.
Still, with the growing possibilities of fraud in computerized and on-line voting, it is good to know that LWV is on the job.
You remember when opposition from both parties stalled Sen. Pete Domenici’s energy bill. Well, the news from the Journal’s Washington Bureau is that he’s got a new version to present to the Senate reconvening Feb. 23.
Seems he cut the subsidies to energy companies from $30 billion to a mere $14 billion. Among the cuts – $1.5 billion to oil companies for research on far-offshore drilling.
He’s also dropped a provision that would protect the makers of MTBE from lawsuits.
Presumably the billions in subsidies for his pet nuclear projects remain.
We should not demonize St. Pete. First, his welfare payments to the energy industry are less generous than what the House GOP wants to disburse. Secondly, many Democrats, including Tom Daschle, a leader, favor the bill because it gives goodies to their states. Daschle likes the gifts to the ethanol industry because it buys corn from South Dakota farmers.
Why am I telling you all this? Because everybody knows ours is a free enterprise economy. And they are wrong. Actually, we run a welfare state for big business. Only small business lives in a competitive, free enterprise world.
PS Jeff Bingaman opposes the slimmed-down bill. He says it’s not essentially different from Domenici’s first try.
The lessons of the Vietnam War are many, but surely one of the most educational is the realization that experts often are not.
From a column by Joseph Galloway, Knight Ridder Newspapers, in today’s Albuquerque Journal:
" A year ago, testifying before Congress, [Paul] Wolfowitz predicted that securing postwar Iraq would be an easier job than the United States and its allies faced in Bosnia or Afghanistan. After all, the deputy secretary said, there’s no ethnic tension in Iraq."
Enough said?
Tonight is the opening performance of Musical Theater Southwest's production of "South Pacific" at the Hiland Theater.
Today's "Albuquerque Journal" feature (in Venue) highlights the musical's theme of racial intolerance.
Fair enough. But after weeks of rehearsal, I am also impressed by Rodgers and Hammerstein's depiction of romance, decency and kindness.
All that in the middle of World War II.
Old-fashioned? You bet.
It turns out there are competent newsfolk.
James Moore, a Texas author, reports in a forthcoming book that George W. Bush jumped a line of 500 applicants waiting to join the Texas Air National Guard in 1968.
Moore says he was asssigned to an outfit "...filled with the progeny of the wealthy and politically influential."
This is from a column by Bob Herbert in today's New York Times.
There's more. It suggests that W. didn't take his Guard duties all that seriously. I see no need to pile more evidence, however, on the pyre.
It's perfectly clear that President George W. Bush ducked into the Guard to duck out of the Vietnam War at its height.
Which may have had something to do with the fact that Americans were dying there.
PS And the Republicans chose him over John McCain. (Here, imagine you are watching me shake my head. There is bewilderment in my face and more than a touch of sadness.)
In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, George W. Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard.
Let me repeat:
In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, George W. Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard.
Once more?
In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, George W. Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard.
And the press keeps wondering if he showed up for Guard duty.
I would ask, "Why didn’t he enlist in the Army, Navy or Marines?
In those days, many chose the Guard as a way to evade Vietnam. Did he? No?
How did he get into the Guard? Did he have to pull strings? If so, who helped him?
If George W. Bush was a Democrat, the press would long ago have tagged him a draft dodger or Vietnam evader.
Now to be fair, many Americans evaded the Vietnam war. Some fled to Canada and other foreign havens, some hid in the Guard and some chose to be "conscientous objectors."
But it’s relevant, isn’t it, if a guy ducked a war and later chose to put young American soldiers in harm’s way in an optional, preemptive war?
More than 500 have lost their lives thus far.
If only the media was liberal. Or just competent...
Just when you think the nation's political discourse cannot get dumber, it does.
For the past two weeks, newspapers and broadcasters have written and pronounced millions of words about weapons of mass destruction. What did we know? When? How much was factual, how much fiction? Was the intelligence wrong or manipulated or both?
Behind all these words lies the assumption that the US went to war because Saddam Hussein had WMD or we thought he had them.
Yet Paul Wolfowitz, a top aide to the Secretary of Defense and an architect of the preemptive attack told us a year ago that WMD was - he didn't use the word but he might have - a pretext. And more recently, former Secretary of the Treasury O'Neill said the Administration was targeting Iraq from the day it moved into the White House.
Of course it was. The terrorist attack on 9/11/01 helped the Administration pass off an existing geopolitical scheme to knock off Saddam Hussein as part of a "war on terrorism." That seems crystal-clear, yet the national conversation on WMD continues unabated as if it is essential.
One of the tasks of the press in our society is to set a political agenda.
Promoting discussion of an item that is fascinating but not of the essence wastes time, hides deeper truths and plays into the hands of the powerful.
I am impressed every day with how out-of-touch the press is.
Consider this from the February issue of The American Prospect:
•In the 2003 race for Philadelphia Mayor. Republicans got up a fleet of 300 cars driven by men with clipboards bearing insignias or decals resembling federal Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alchol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives insignia.
"These pseudo cops spent election day cruising Philadelphia's African-American neighborhoods and asking prospective voters to show them some form of identification - an age-old method of voter intimidation."
OK. Hang onto that report while considering another:
• Rep. Billy Tauzin is the Louisiana Republican who helped get the recent prescription drug bill through the Congress, a bill that pleased the pharmaceutical industry. Now Tauzin, whose term has a year to go, is thinking of quitting to accept a $2 million offer to head the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drugmakers'lobby.
(Neither Tauzin nor PhRMA confirmed the report. They didn't deny it, either.)
OK. GOP intimidation of black voters in Philly and a GOP Congressman close to getting his reward on earth for services to industry.
Now consider this, from Dan K. Thomasson, a Scripps-Howard columnist:
What this country doesn't need (in its presidential campaigns) is 10 months of nasty negativism from either party....
Both candidates ...will be qualified to discuss (big issues) without resorting to mudslinging. Is it too much to hope civility is the key to this election?"
My answer? Yes.
My country needs the Democrats to engage in a gutsy, tell-it-like-it-is, down and dirty truth-telling assault on the White House.
Nothing less will do.
And journalists ought to stop playing the Marquess of Queensbury and start uncovering this Administration's Watergates.
They might start by tracing the links between the Bush family, US oil interests and Saudi Arabia. Just follow the money, as Deep Throat advised.
It seems Governor Richardson berated and threatened lobbyists for the drug companies and health care business. That's the testimony, according to the Albuquerque Journal this morning, of State Sen. Tim Jennings, his wife, Patty (executive director, New Mexico Medical Insurance pool) and Judy Knox, president of the New Mexico Health Care Association.
They think it’s wrong.
Me? I’m not sure I believe it, but if it's true, maybe the Governor is a Democrat.
You couldn’t tell from his tax policies.
"The corporation cannot be ethical, its only responsibility is to make a profit.
- Milton Friedman
Source: "Thieves in High Places", by Jim Hightower (Viking, 2003)
President Richard M. Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into law 31 years ago yesterday.
Can you imagine President George W. Bush doing anything like that?
In case you needed a reminder of how far right the Republican Party and the US have drifted.
The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather just reported that CBS, the NFL and TV station managers across the country are outraged and apologetic.
Michael Powell, chairman of the FCC, vows an investigation into this violation of the "sacred" time period set aside for children.
Why? At half-time in the Super Bowl, viewers saw one of Janet Jackson’s breasts.
Of course, the Super Bowl is more than a football game. For years, it’s been intertwined with beer, military might and sex. (Ah, to be a master of geometry and measure the gap between cheerleaders’ cleavage and Jackson’s exposed mammary gland.)
But back to outrage. CBS is not outraged by its "reality" TV. Nor by prostituting its morning news show to publicize various "Survivors" and such.
The NFL still uses artificial playing surfaces that expose players to injury and is less than Draconian in punishing players who use illegal or unhealthy drugs.
Station managers rarely, if ever, get upset when their local news shows contain little or no news.
And Michael Powell feels no outrage as fewer media moguls control the information and entertainment available to most Americans. In fact, Powell pushes for more concentration.
But a breast outrages them. Of course it does. What better way to tilillate, to distract the audience from their own shoddiness.
PS I suspect the incident was no accident.
PPS Having left home for a rehearsal at the end of the first half, I missed Janet busting out all over.
Darn.
As a young guy in Paris on the GI Bill, I bumped into some Poujadists - followers of a far right-wing politician named Poujade. Seated in a café, we argued politics and when we were finished I had learned something. There’s no point in debating someone with whom you do not share basic assumptions.
These guys believed, for example, in beating up their opponents. They were anti-Semites, too. In sum, the Poujadists were would-be fascists and, as such, oblivious to my triumphant arguments.
I was reminded of the Poujadists when chatting recently with a Prime Time reader about prescription drugs. He works in health care in Albuquerque. He was intelligent, well-informed and confident drug manufacturers would see the virtue of balance, raising their prices overseas and bringing them down here.
No, they won’t. What this gentleman didn’t understand is that Big Pharma shares neither his fundamental reasonableness nor his decency.
They charge more for pills here because they can. They can because they've bought the American political system. Not so, overseas.
I fear that most Americans - conservatives, middle-of-the-roaders and liberals – assume the Bush White House is like them. Interested in the common good, that is. Dedicated to playing by the rules. Mistaken, perhaps, on specific issues, but basically good guys.
I would like to agree, but there’s too much evidence to the contrary.
o Supreme Court Justice Scalia intends to hear a case involving his duck-hunting buddy, VP Dick Chaney. No recusal needed. Chief Justice Rehnquist is backing him.
o An AP story about the country’s "ailing manufacturing sector" reports that the Bush Administration is calling for the creation of a new presidential council "to give US companies a greater voice in government decisions."
o The House voted on a bill to exempt active duty, reservist and veterans’ families from tougher bankruptcy standards. Tom Udall voted to give the military guys and gals a break. Heather Wilson, retired military, voted "No." She also voted to ignore conflicts of interest on the part of investment bankers that could harm creditors.
o We needed to attack Iraq, you remember, because its WMD represented a clear and present danger to us. Well, in his State of the Union speech, Bush’s lethal WMD became "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."
• The White House continues to stonewall probes of 9/11/01, even GOP-led investigations.
o Last week, the Pentagon said it is planning a new offensive to foil the expected movement of Taliban figures and AlQaeda terrorists in still-troubled regions of Afghanistan.
o To get his Medicare "reform" passed, Bush twisted the arms of conservative Republicans who objected to the cost, $400 billion over 10 years. That was a few weeks ago. In that time, the White House cost estimate has risen to $540 billion.
o Many months ago, diplomat Joseph Wilson, on an Administration assignment, determined that a story about Iraq getting nuclear material from Africa was false. He made that information public. Somebody in the White House – Wilson guesses it was Karl Rove or a Roveite – promptly leaked to Robert Novak, the right-wing columnist, that the diplomat’s wife is a CIA agent. The idea was to tell future Wilsons and future intelligence pros to keep their traps shut.
Incidentally, it's illegal to blow the cover of a CIA operative.
The Attorney General has yet to come up with the name of the leaker.And the White House has "let the earthmovers roll in over this one," a senior official there told Financial Times.
You get the idea. Like the Poujadists back in 1955-56, the Bush White House does not share my understandings about the USA, the common good or playing fair.
Would-be fascists? I don't know yet.
It is my belief that Ring Lardner wrote the great American sentence. It's in a novel about baseball whose title may be "You Know Me, Al." Or not.
In any case, this is my nomination for the best American sentence:
"Shut up," he explained.
In December, the White House said its Medicare bill with prescription drugs would cost $400 billion. Now the White House says it will cost $540 billion.
Some Republican conservatives opposed the bill because they thought it was too expensive at $400 billion. The White House solution? Lie. Keep the new estimate secret.
I keep thinking Bush and friends have hit the bottom only to find out that I am wrong. They have an infinite supply of new lows.
This is not about ideology. This is about getting what you want by playing the lying game. Even with your buddies.
Yesterday, I read a book called "Howard Dean – A Citizens Guide to the Man Who Would be President" (Steerforth Press) by several reporters who had covered him in Vermont.
Today, I watched Tim Russert interview Dean at length on "Meet the Press."
The book was rich. I take away from it the impression that Dean is not much of a liberal, that he pursues idealistic goals in practical ways and that he is inner-directed, his own man.
The Tim Russert interview was clarifying. As someone who worked in TV news for 25 + years, I know it is dangerous to try to figure out from watching them on the Tube what anchors or politicians really think. So i venture no opinion on that. However, I did find Howard Dean and Tim Russert, though seated feet from each other, worlds apart.
Russert, an excellent, well-prpeared questioner, is part of a national elite of reporters who belong to the same social class as the politicians they cover. And share similar values.
Dean, I saw, did not belong.
Oh, he gave Russert one or two appropriate answers, the kind that come with the Good Politicking Seal. Mostly, though – Hold on, the phone just rang. It was a recorded plea that I vote for Dean from a big union.
OK, we are back. Mostly, though, his answers were very complex. In several he didn’t just say "I believe X and Y," but explained his reasoning or referred to the experience that led to the position.
And he continued to speak English, characterizing the leaders of the NRA (not the rank-and-file) as "nutty."
Not long ago, Dean, asked about his foreign policy experience, admitted that was "a hole in his resume." The press was unanimous in coming down on him. For they can abide honesty only in small doses.
Long before this, Dean made it clear he was running as much against the Democratic Party "establishment" as against the GOP. Of course, he’s since taken support from Al Gore and other "new Democrats."
But I think he really is an outsider. That he is strong and absolutely right on Iraq. That his views on health care and other bread-and-butter issues are reasonable, if not as leftist as I would like.
And that he understands the corporate domination of our country the way John McCain understands it.
Oh, how I wish he had gone to Vietnam. That would have made the contrast with the chicken hawks in the White House really big.
Kerry and Clark would benefit from that contrast. And I do care about electability. But that’s not so easy to figure; remember when Dewey trounced Truman?
And while it’s true Kerry is admirable and gaining strength, I still feel no intellectual or emotional connection. Maybe other Americans will feel the same way.
So I will vote Tuesday for Dean.
Remember. You read it here first.